The State of the World in 2007
The Reality of a Multipolar World Order

… not a pleasant sight

Anyone who expects a well-ordered world under the heading of
world order is way off. Today’s order is an accumulation of “hot spots.” The
biggest and most crucial, the “Middle East arc of crisis,” stretches from East
Africa to Pakistan.

The easternmost country of this arc is sinking into civil
war–like chaos because the United States has extortionately enlisted the
Western-orientated military dictator there as an ally in its anti-terror war.
He was allowed to choose whether to make the American war against Al Qaeda and
the Taliban his own cause or to be regarded as a supporter of terror and suffer
the same fate as they did. Now the state that split off from India in the name
of Islam reluctantly wages a war against its faithful in the hitherto
autonomous northern and western border areas. The tribes there grant their
relatives from over the border shelter and retreat. The war prescribed by
America is not only splitting the Pakistani people, it is turning the
institutions of state against each other and subverting the machinery of
force: intelligence service and military.

Over the border in Afghanistan a real war is being
waged under the leadership of the United States to keep a government in power
that does not enjoy any backing by the tribes and clans there. After having
conquered the country and driven the pious Taliban out of Kabul, the occupying
powers placed Karzai and his team in the ruins of the ministries and ordered
them to govern their country henceforth in the service of American security; in
other words, to make sure, with all the means of an admittedly completely
inadequate state power, that anti-American terrorists are never again able to
use the country as a base of operations. Members of NATO and other states have
put themselves at the disposal of the United States for this mission. With
soldiers and volunteer development workers, they fight for their worth to the
alliance and the worth of the entire alliance to the United States; for this
they insist on exclusive responsibility in their operational areas, even going
so far in proving the formal autonomy of their deployment as to deny the
leading power and each other military aid in emergency situations. The
leading power on its part not only fights the Taliban but at the same time
fights to subordinate and instrumentalize its allies for its cause. So there is
a struggle on the ground in the Hindu Kush, already into its seventh year, for
a pro-American monopoly on force and for the significance of NATO, even for
its very future. A victory of the occupying powers, which would reconcile them
for the time being, is more distant than ever, as is of course the sought-for
stability.

By contrast, Afghanistan’s neighbor to the west is
much too stable for the United States. An Islamic republic, which arose through
a revolution against an American friend on the Peacock Throne, is holding on to
power there. To this day, Iran accepts neither American hegemony over
the Islamic world in general nor Israel’s sweeping display of power as
America’s outpost, and works against it with its comparatively limited means.
In the process, it has managed considerable development at home — not least in the field of nuclear and missile technology,
which makes its existence even more unbearable for the Americans. Iran is not
entitled to a technology that could only perhaps enable an armament possessed
by the United States and the likes of it as a matter of course. Guaranteeing
Iran’s lasting nuclear defenselessness is avowedly worth a third world war to
President Bush. And that is anything but pie in the sky: from what one hears,
detailed plans for preventively disarming Iran, i.e., for bombing its nuclear
facilities and arms factories, have been lying in reserve at the Pentagon’s for
quite some time ready to go with the necessary firepower in the Persian Gulf.
Reconnaissance, sabotage, and fire direction units are said to be already
operating on Iran’s territory.

In the South, beyond the Persian Gulf, there is another
strictly Islamic country that has also attracted the attention of the United
States as a cradle of terror, namely, as the country of origin of most of Al
Qaeda’s fighters, and has also gotten a democratic revolution of its political
culture prescribed for it. In the meantime, Washington makes demands on the
questionable Saudi kingdom rather more as an unwilling ally. Unlike
Iran, it is due to be armed, not disarmed — with equipment that the Saudis have
not ordered but that they will certainly need in view of the American
escalation against Iran and the imminent war, equipment they cannot turn down
at any rate.

Directly to the north of the Saudis and west of Persia, the
world power wages the biggest war of the decade. The fight for Iraq has
meanwhile abandoned the prospect of a democratic regime change and turned more
into a “Balkanization” of the local balance of power. The invaders have given
up the aim of giving the country, in place of the Arab nationalism of the Baath
Party, a stable, democratic, and pro-American regime that is at least able to
cover the costs of war and repair war damages by exporting oil. After the
modest success of the troop reinforcement and extensive mopping-up campaign of
last spring, the U.S. army has altered its tactics and is now fighting
international Islamic insurgents by providing weapons and logistic support even
to Sunni tribes that it had counted among the insurgents until recently. This
isolates Al Qaeda, but at the same time disintegrates the central government in
Baghdad, which the Americans continue to arm. George Bush is not giving up his
war aim; the failure of regime change merely reduces it to its core: he
intends to implant American military might into the center of the Islamic world
— but now in the form of large military bases capable of action in the midst of
scorched earth. Without the prospect of pacifying Iraq and installing a
functioning monopoly on force in Baghdad, without a viable state and without a
livelihood for the population, it is all the more about the purely negative
self-assertion of American hegemony over the Gulf. If no pro-American power is
to be created by war, then at least the holding out and consolidation of
anti-American bulwarks can be prevented in the wider region.

The reliable ally of the United States in the Middle East
already sees to that in its own way. Israel, the regional superpower, is
not out for a balance with its Arab neighbors but demands that they recognize
the existence of the Jewish state, its territorial claims, and its hegemonic
role in the region without anything in return. Israel suppresses the enemies it
thereby makes for itself by attacking them from time to time, weakening them,
and reducing them in size, at any rate by keeping them at bay militarily.
Hardly a year since its campaign in southern Lebanon aimed at destroying
Hezbollah and terminating Syrian influence, and here comes another air raid on
alleged Syrian attempts at armament in order to keep the balance that America’s
protégé insists on. The same balance requires that a nuclear-armed Israel will
in no event be faced by a nuclear-armed Iran. Israel threatens the Persians
with a preventive war in complete autonomy and demonstrates, with Syria, that
it not only threatens. Its consistent war policy has brought the Israeli
immigration state to the point that no Arab or Islamic country will any longer
openly be prepared to do battle with it and that it can wage its permanent war
undisturbed against the largely defenseless populations of the West Bank and
Gaza, territories it occupied in 1967. The war has arrived at an interim
milestone, namely, turned into a war between the Palestinians, who fight each
other over alternative foundations of a state Israel won’t allow either way. As
ever, the American world power sees to progress in the difficult “peace
process”: it arms Israel in a big way — not simply against the Palestinians —
and, on a smaller scale, Fatah against Hamas.

A few thousand kilometers to the south, beyond the Red Sea,
another flash point is troubling the United Sates: Somalia, relegated
to being a failed state after the American intervention more than a decade ago,
and where order was halfway restored by Sharia courts after an era of turmoil
and warlords, needed to be freed from Islamists and secured from terrorists.
The Ethiopian army handled this for the Americans; their new African friend has
placed its old expansionist desires for Ogaden at the service of world order
and occupied its neighbor completely. But the government, re-imported by the
Ethiopian occupiers, has no base of power in its own country, so that the
Ethiopian military in Mogadishu has its hands full. To support them, the U.S.
air force at the Horn of Africa drops by with airplanes and bombs, and hits
hard at suspected concentrations of Sharia militias with everything it has. The
world power will not be denied such “sporadic deployments,” by which it makes
clear that nothing on the globe is beyond its control and the range of its
weapons, and that no result can endure without its approval. Apart from that,
Somalia is only a problematic case in securing Africa’s east coast and the
entire Indian Ocean. Movement of anti-Western armed groups is prevented there,
also with the help of the German navy; the superpower needs the naval area for
itself: as supply route and stage for its wars in the Persian Gulf.

The other problematic case in East Africa is Sudan,
though of a different caliber. Being under an Islamic government as well, it
has been worn down by the United States for decades: initially, America
supported the separatism of Christian and animistic tribes in the south, and
then compelled Khartoum to a peace agreement that weakens the national
cohesion. Since the country all the same still finds foreign buyers and
promoters for its oil and other resources, and can therefore gain access to
national means of survival, the United States is now supporting a violent
separatism in the western provinces of Africa’s largest country. From the
resulting daily violation of human rights, it derives the right and duty of the
world community to intervene militarily in Darfur, demanding and supporting
intervention on the part of all possible actors, from the United Nations to the
African Union to the European Union or its individual members, as long as this
contests the sovereignty and control of the Sudanese state over its territory.
In Sudan, which has sought and found in China a global political backer, what’s
at stake is not just America securing a piece of the dark continent, but at the
same time China’s African and global policy. What its diplomatic support of
African regimes and its economic offers are worth, and thus what the Middle
Kingdom is worth as a global political godfather altogether, will be proven in
the state’s struggle for survival in Khartoum, or fail with it. The Americans
know very well why they don’t let up, and hurry along the alternatives of
national collapse or regime change in ever new ways.

A bit further to the north, America has brought Libya’s
Qaddafi under control after decades of sporadic bombardments, economic damage,
and political isolation, so much so that he has given up his unwelcome attempts
at military assertion, brought his will to interfere with his African neighbors
in line with the aims of the superpower, and offers himself as mediator in the
war over Darfur.

Further to the north, beyond the Mediterranean Sea and in
the midst of that oasis of stability, Europe, a war has been left
half-finished, straining America’s patience but once again dividing the
European Union. Together in 1999, they had brought the era of dismantling Yugoslavia
to an end by bombing the autonomous center of state power in the Balkans, based
in Belgrade, into capitulation and breaking it apart. The ceasefire conditions
of that time — no shifting of internationally recognized borders but a full
withdrawal of the Serbian military from the province that legally still
belonged to Serbia, as well as autonomy for the Albanian nationalists freed
from Belgrade’s yoke — have never been enough for the Albanians; and that
suits the Americans fine. They are threatening the Europeans, Russians, and
the UN Security Council with unilateral recognition of a sovereign state of Kosovo,
knowing full well that they are thus abrogating the founding agreement of the
United Nations, i.e., respect for the territorial integrity of sovereign
nation-states. The gratitude of a separatist state, unviable on its own and in
standing confrontation with its former fatherland, is worth this much amendment
of international custom to them, a state that will impose itself on them as a
lasting military base in the midst of Europe just in the interest of its
survival. The warning of some that this might end up as a signal to destroy
unpopular states and create acceptable ones is understood more as a task than a
concern by the Americans: they just have to successfully deter others from
doing what they themselves have the nerve to do: above all the Russians, who
regard the Georgian province of Abkhazia and Moldavian Transnistria as cases
identical to that of Kosovo.

Yes, Russia. This state simply does not keep to the
disintegration and deprivation of power that had been worked out with Yeltsin.
Putin gathers the remaining instruments of power, puts the economic basis of
power in order, and looks to secure some allied states in the ex-Soviet region.
He thus raises nothing but questions of power for America. After all, it
demands the right of access and lays claim to the states from the Caucasus to
Central Asia with their oil and interesting semicircle around Russia. The
Americans impose themselves on Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and so on as
military suppliers and protectors of their freedom against Moscow, incite
anti-Russian nationalism wherever possible, and stage-manage colorful
revolutions. When Putin then does not take the interceptor missiles they are
deploying on his frontier as a contribution to Russia’s security but as an
attack on his capability for nuclear threats, and announces both resistance and
counter-armament, then all is clear: after a decade of decline, Russia is once
again too big and too powerful — perhaps the most difficult problematic case
for the American world order.

A look at his own hemisphere shows the U.S. president how
endangered this order is: in the south of his twin continent and under the
leadership of the Venezuelan, leftwing nationalists have come to power
who openly challenge the bases of their countries’ livelihood — the taking of
land and people into service for American capital and political dependence on
Washington. To that end, Chavez and his crowd even find the economic means in
the superpower’s insatiable need for oil, of all things. They can rely on the
broad support of the masses in their countries; coups attempted by
Yankee-friendly oppositional groups have already been tried and failed. And now
they are even gathering sympathizers and partners in other South-American
states. A question of power is ripening there to which the White House is going
to devote a lot of attention.

Nothing is in order; not even much further west, in the Far
East. It is true that in the case of North Korea the all-clear can be
sounded — but on what basis? The war with the country, which is thought
capable of possessing at least eight plutonium bombs, is indeed not taking
place for the moment. Its nuclear disarmament, however, agreed upon through the
intercession of China, has by no means been carried out yet — and the Yanks
know that lot inside out: those crazy stone-age communists will not so easily
do without nuclear weapons, which provide them a certain guarantee of survival
against its superior might. And the fact that China was even needed in
addition to Russia to influence the North Koreans is more of an annoyance than
a reason for the Americans to be satisfied. Hardly does this China become so
really useful for — above all — American capital does it also become too
powerful. The United States has its hands full confining it and restricting the
scope of its power. Taiwan is helpful for this. The United States
provides the island with a defense guarantee against the People’s Republic’s
demands for reunification, and for that arms it with the most modern equipment.
The great People’s Republic has to respect the superpower's containing it in
this way as America's concern for the balance of power, which China obviously jeopardizes
as a rapidly growing power. Even Buddhist monks
acquire importance in American efforts to check and isolate the gigantic
empire: they take to the street in neighboring Burma and put pressure
on the military regime, which is politically and economically linked to China.
The opportunity to further destabilize this country is taken. A UN resolution
against the unelected military regime and a worldwide rabble-rousing media
campaign against the human rights–violating officers are gotten under way, and
the demonstrators receive warm encouragement to dangerously escalate the
situation. Now one only has to see that things do not calm down again.

India, bordering on the west, is of course much more
important. The United States no longer accuses it of an unauthorized bid for
the atom bomb, but single-handedly elevates the country to the rank of an
acknowledged, legitimate nuclear power. America creates and foils nuclear
powers; in this case overtly calculating that an India capable of waging a
world war will grow to be a solid enemy of China and form a “counterbalance”
against the yellow nuclear power. The new friend, however, is making
difficulties: having picked up the recognition, many a politician in Delhi no
longer understands the price for it — America’s conditions for developing a
civil nuclear program and its restrictions on a military one. Hardly recognized
as a power capable of a nuclear strike, the Indians are working on a secure
second strike capacity, which would halfway immunize them against nuclear
extortion on the part of even much more powerful nuclear powers. This is not
what their friend Bush intended. Here again, there are dangers looming for the
world order; especially since the never-ending conflict with the other
South-Asian nuclear power over Kashmir smolders on: Pakistan. We have gone once
around the world order and have arrived again at this indispensable and
untenable pillar in the war against terror.

The United States insists: This is how world order works

It sees the “new world order,” placed on the agenda by Bush
Sr. with the self-destruction of the USSR and his first war against Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq (1991), in danger. The “only remaining superpower” takes it for
granted that there actually exists a clear hierarchy of states, and that though
respectful of its might and the ensuing right, numerous states nonetheless make
an exhibition of themselves. Challengers big and small disregard America’s
supremacy, thus violating the existing order. World peace can be saved,
cooperation between states can be secured and restored, but only by a renewed
clarification of the ranking of nations, or as the case may be by a
far-reaching plowing-up of the balance of power in the world of states, which
will drag on for decades.

The present Bush embodies this standpoint. He seeks to
bestow the blessings of democracy on all peoples who still lack it, and
promises to free them from the wrong rulers they are obeying. He is completely
occupied with “making the world a better place.” His missionary appearance
pointedly breaks with what even English newspapers call “Realpolitik,” an
earlier allegedly conventional foreign policy that is, however, impossible for
the superpower. This policy is based on taking note and account of the
interests and means of other states and attempting to adjust and subordinate
the foreign policy and economic behavior of one’s “partners” to one’s own
national interests by offers, and by threats of damage. The fact that one
sovereign has to come to terms with another sovereign it can’t get around, and
for that reason wants to do it, is defined by Bush’s secretary of state Rice to
be an unacceptable opportunism, which does not maintain the peace and order she
has in mind, but rather disrupts it. The superpower cannot be expected to take
up foreign interests in a calculating way and make arrangements with other
powers. It is superior to them, permits or prohibits other nations’ interests,
engages foreign powers in the service of its order, and punishes infringement.
It establishes international law, passes judgment on the actions of other
states, and directly executes its verdicts itself. In accordance with this
program, its representatives sacrifice a sacred cow with which the West in
particular had embellished its world order: as long as the Soviet Union
existed with its “Brezhnev Doctrine of the limited sovereignty of socialist
states,” any “intervention in the internal affairs” of other states was a sin,
and the freedom of nations a great good. The American foreign policy of today
surpasses Brezhnev by far: it regards the once noble formulas of “respect for
foreign sovereignty” and “non-intervention in internal affairs” as nothing but
a license for dictators and violators of human rights.

Political military subordination of the world of states — a program of
violence without equal

In granting rights and imposing duties, the United States
acts as a global political usher vis-à-vis other sovereigns, designating a role
and a rank in the hierarchy of states for each of them. One of them is to open
up as a source for oil for American companies; another is to function as a
transit country with well-protected pipelines and exclude other neighbors from
this role. Still others are to secure the waters around Southeast Asia for
maritime trade or form a counterweight to China. Some are allowed to have a say
in controlling states of lesser rank, others not; some are allowed to be
nuclear powers — the level is also determined in Washington — others not; some
are to ascend to the UN Security Council, others not. And of course, it is the
first but hardly sufficient condition for the United States to accept a country
as a member of the community of states that it organize its internal economic
life in a capitalistic way, offer international capital the utilization of its
sources of wealth, and expose these to the judgment of the world market. Those
few that are making new anticapitalist attempts or stick to old ones are at the
top of the list of unbearable foes.

The United States checks whether countries adhere to, or
stray from assigned roles, constantly assessing the behavior of sovereigns big
and small. The decisive criterion for their readiness to subordinate themselves
as demanded is the use they make of their military power. If the State
Department and Pentagon value the deployment of foreign weapons as serving U.S.
dominance over the world of states, then it is legitimate and a contribution to
peace. Before any armed encounter, such a state has at least to get in touch
with Washington and obtain authorization. Otherwise, its use of force, anywhere
at all on the globe, is a direct attack on the United States, a breach of
international law if not terrorism, because it challenges the exclusive
American right to order the world. Of course, control over the power of other
sovereigns does not wait until means of force are used. Excepting its immediate
allies — and in certain matters even with them — the superpower assesses mere
efforts toward effective weapons as an attack on its special position. Not just
what other states do but also what they might possibly be able to do endangers
its order. America’s order is only secure if it alone possesses weapons of
every kind and can deploy them according to its free calculation.

America’s supervision is furthermore not confined to the
foreign policy of the objects of its control but concerns their entire internal
life. They are not only to make themselves compatible with American demands by
restricting themselves in acquiring weapons and in forgoing their sovereign
use, but also to guarantee by their entire existence that they are a
contribution to the security and functioning of the world order. And for that — this is what the Americans claim to have learned from their bad experience with
Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda — neither a country’s constructive role in the world
economy nor a government’s pro-American foreign policy is sufficient. Hence,
even a wrong place of religion in public life, a nationalism discontented with
the country’s rank, an anti-American politicization of the people, a weak and
unstable state that allows things like this, these are now seen and
incriminated as a security risk and a breach of duty of the state in question
towards the world order.

In light of established misbehavior, unauthorized display of
power, open or concealed resistance, the safeguarding of the American world
order consists in a permanent program of violence, a chain of corrections of
nation-states that simply cannot be dissuaded from following their own interests,
however cautiously and calculatingly, and not America’s. The unabashed
interference in the internal affairs of countries that appear to be problematic
to the U.S. government is just the beginning. It fills regions in which people
don’t think as told with the sound of freedom-radio stations; it fosters
“civil society” in countries whose governments it does not like, even if a
society in a modern sense does not exist at all; it sets up opposition parties
wherever they do not arise by themselves, supports dissidents with money and
sabotage, and instigates revolution wherever it sees fit. If, however, a
desire from below for freedom turns against allied thugs, the administration
defends democracy by training and equipping the secret police. Naturally, it
doesn’t rely on its indulging in government- bypassing remote access to
peoples, on propaganda for the American way of life via Radio Liberty, CNN, and
the Internet, and on the correct outcome of its stirring up of unrest. On the
contrary, all this is only the run-up and accompaniment to more rigorous forms
of correcting foreign sovereigns.

States or armed organizations identified as enemies by the
American government are terrorists. Their sheer existence is an affront and
raises doubts as to the validity of the world order. They are declared outlaws
in the community of states — in the name of which the United States always acts —
and eliminated.

But this does not exhaust the achievements of an American
war for world order. Just as important is the effect of such a clarification on
the states surrounding the outlaws: everywhere the world power smokes out the
seat of anti-Americanism, it implants itself in the midst of the region where
resistance was able to rise up. The neighboring states are not only confronted
with the fact that the world power also is the greatest regional power in every
region of the world, a power that does not tolerate any rival; through its
presence and capabilities, they are unequivocally compelled to recognize it as
the decisive basic condition of their existence and to take the superpower in
their neighborhood as their first consideration in all their calculations.

Thirdly, the lesson of such a war is aimed at the wider
world of states, especially its minority of powerful states, which, thanks to
their own worldwide interests, see themselves affected by all affairs, show an
interest in them, and claim rights of control and responsibility for more or
less large parts of the world. They have to learn that ordering the world
without or even against the United States is out of the question. The permanent
members of the UN Security Council as well as the so-called Central European
powers and others are allowed to exercise control and imperialistic dominion
over their backyards; but only under the condition that the superpower
appreciates this as contribution to its order, never without this license. They
have to understand that they can only be great powers as followers and
auxiliary troops of the United States, or they will be ignored and pushed away
into global political insignificance. “Becoming irrelevant” — this is what
Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense at that time, threatened the German chancellor
and the French president with, who had both refused to bless and assist in the
invasion of Iraq. The proven readiness of the United States to wage any war
against any enemy it determines and the capability to clearly decide such wars
in its favor should make it clear to potential rivals that there is no
alternative to joining in or being irrelevant, and that any opposition to the
world ordering power, any competition over the control of the world of states,
is futile.

In this sense, the Third World War, a new power struggle
over the monopoly on force between states, has long since been taking place.
What matters to the United States is deciding the imperialistic competition
among the states over dominating and dictating, and thereby ending it once and
for all. It then intends to base its peace on its prevailing as the irrefutable
power, in other words, on its guaranteed guiding of the world of states by
diplomacy alone.

The world economy in American military service: The free flow of
commodities and capital is declared to be a security risk and taken under
control

The same nation that prescribes to the world free trade,
open borders, and non-discrimination as the conditions for trade, and that
celebrates its successful liberalization of international commerce as
“globalization” with undreamt-of possibilities for growth, does not hesitate to
subordinate this commerce to its strategic needs, i.e., in part judging it to
be a danger from the standpoint of national security and halting it, in part
taking advantage of the dependence that results from international exchange as
an instrument to control other nations politically. Being taken into service in
this way may well accord with the national purpose of the American economic
order and bring to light how it was meant from the beginning, but at the same
time it contradicts the regulations and practices of the established world
market. Of course, the victor of the Second World War imposed open markets and
free movement of capital on the part of the world it dominated, to the greater
benefit of its own nation. This country, toweringly superior in terms of amount
of capital and productivity, could rely on free competition for the wealth of
the capitalistic world being a means for its superiority and a guarantee for
its lasting success. From the very first, the establishing of an open world
market that no longer knows exclusive zones of influence nor the formation of
economic blocs means that the victorious power is no longer excluded from any
zone and no longer tolerates any formation of blocs against itself, instead
thereby breaks up the remaining colonial empires and turns the whole world into
a zone for its own capitalistic utilization.

For the other nation-states, this is a strategic imposition.
But apart from one big exception, which is therefore immediately defined as
enemy and fought by all means to the point of “Cold” World War, all losers and
degraded co-victors, as the case may be, put up with this imposition, which,
however, also offers them liberties, and does not flatly prohibit their
national egoism but binds it in one way: they have to forgo power-policy-like
means of securing their foreign economic success but are permitted to compete
for the wealth of the capitalist world by economic means — even against the
originator of this order, which on its part refrains from forcibly correcting
the results of this competition because it does not need to. For the most
part, at any rate; because the ambiguity of a competition of nations that is
permitted by the supreme power but confined to the economic arena, a
competition that is meant to be an open race but at the same time a guarantee
of American success, leads time and again to a need for correction on the part
of U.S. governments. Their corrections always reinforce both sides of this
ambivalence: they accuse other nations’ competitive successes that go too far
for them of being the result of unfair competitive practices, and invariably
not free trade. If America doesn’t bring in enough success, there’s something
wrong with the rules! On the other hand, this sort of critique transforms any
dissatisfaction with the results of competition into demands for an even
further dismantling of national reservations against free exchange; totally
genuine competition, whose verdicts even the United States would bow to, has
yet to be established. This forward driving criticism has led to ever lower
tariffs and to ever more open fields of business for international investors.
Today, the world market, regulated by international institutions, with nothing
but internationalized actors, is no longer a program nor an American
concession, but an accomplished fact. Every firm is a multinational company
that buys, sells, and produces worldwide and for the most part has
international ownership. Now, this global economic reality is being
subordinated to the political military need of the United States to assert
itself.

The ideology of peace policy with which the world power once
launched its economic order is informative in another respect. Not because it
would have been the practical reason but because it betrays a theoretical
imperialist wisdom that the current politicization of foreign trade blatantly
slaps in the face. In the phase of the emergence of the open world economy, the
United States passed off its preventing the formation of blocs, privileging of
certain states, and exclusion of others from national markets as an instrument
for securing peace; after all, the exclusion from raw materials and markets
would immediately transform the economic competition of states into a political
competition of state powers that would have to force concessions or else would
be forcibly prevented from joining in competition from the first. This, it was
supposed, had made the egoism of nations downright venomous and led to the world
wars of the twentieth century. In the era of its antiterrorist world war, the
United States itself politicizes economic relations however it needs to.

An antiterrorist quarantine on the movement of persons, commodities, and
money

To defend against hostile attacks on its territory, the
United States takes the liberty to control the entire movement of persons,
commodities, and money in the global economy, and reminds all nations it trades
with of their duties in that regard. It restricts the freedom of movement of
persons when it demands a detailed set of passenger data from airlines and
airports from which planes take off to the United States, data that has to be
at the disposal of U.S. security agencies long before landing, in order to
check passengers against their wanted list and catch and detain potentially
suspicious persons, or send them back via return mail. The same goes for
commodity trade. In order that nothing assassins could use enters the country
unrecognized, the security agencies inspect every docking ship and every
container. They make their practice of sweeping investigation the duty of
shipping companies and port authorities in the countries of origin so that
nothing dangerous even arrives at U.S. ports. In the same way, they take the
monetary side of world trade under control and halt transactions in which
enemies, be they private persons, organizations, or states, carry out their
activities with money. Whenever subjects accused of hostile intent receive or
spend money, the states of the world have to treat it and pursue it as a
criminal act, money laundering or the like; they find themselves enlisted as
an extended arm of U.S. Customs and Homeland Security.

Sanctions, boycotts, embargos — the enforcement of compulsory economic
measures with and against the allies

The United States does not leave it at the obstruction of
business transactions out of defensive reasons for averting terror; it uses
trade bans as an active offensive measure to damage its enemies. The U.S.
president imposes sanctions against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Belarus, Cuba,
Sudan, Burma, Gaza, and so on, and with each mandated exclusion from
international exchange, it revokes a bit of “globalization.” The exclusion
from world trade is not only meant to damage the targeted state but to strangle
it and break its will, or to starve it out and weaken it in preparation for an
attack. Hence it goes without saying that the leading power is not content with
halting trade with its enemies on its own, while others blithely continue. It
does not wait until partners share its view and join its economic war, but
leads the way; but only to demonstrate leadership and put pressure on others.
In international organizations that otherwise drive globalization forward, it
pushes for all states to subordinate themselves to its hostilities and do
without the profits from business with states the United States is bothered
about. In the UN, NATO, the G8, the WTO, and the IMF, with a changing cast of
characters but essentially always among the same bigger powers, a struggle
takes place over generalizing the American economic war, i.e., over its
efficiency.

At the same time, the administration does not rely on the
powers of persuasion of its diplomats but takes unilateral measures to increase
the degree of effectiveness of its sanction regime and make hidden resistance
on the part of the others impossible. For that, the Secretary of the Treasury
has discovered an entirely new field of security policy: he has the global
payment transactions investigated and keeps a record of which national or
private institution anywhere on the globe does business with whom. For that, he
uses the exceptional position enjoyed by the homeland of world capitalism: New
York is the most important financial center; transactions on a massive scale
are carried out there, even if neither American buyers nor sellers are
involved. What is more, U.S. banks are the biggest institutions of finance
capital, are active in all countries and continents, and at the same time
remain patriotically obligated to their homeland’s need for information. And
where the U.S. Treasury is not directly allowed to take a look, it arranges for
listening in and recording in secret, such as leaked out with that European
clearinghouse in Belgium, SWIFT. With the information it gathers, it can first
of all directly contribute to waging the economic war.[1]
All business transacted by incriminated states or organizations via American
financial centers or institutions is stopped and their assets confiscated. The
sweeping overview secondly helps control other states participating in the
world economy and remind them of their duties toward the American sanction
regime. The partners are no longer allowed to avoid open rebellion against the
United States on the one hand, but on the other hand to secure their foreign
business activities from U.S. hostility toward a trading partner with whom they
get on well by simply overlooking private activities. No more excuses: the
U.S. Treasury Secretary confronts the partners with dates and amounts of
transactions that their country’s institutions have concluded with “the enemy.”

If, however, some partners dig in their heels and refuse to
go along with the sanction regime, there are other levers for obtaining compliance
for, and adding weight to, the nation’s boycott measures: circumventing the
national governments, U.S. authorities approach globally active firms from
France, Germany, Austria, etc., and urgently advise them to discontinue
business activities with, say, Iran that American spying has brought to notice.
Firms are susceptible to blackmail to the extent that they maintain
subsidiaries in the United States or do business with U.S. firms. The broad
jurisdiction of American courts thereby gets a direct hold on them, or is able
to blackmail them by threats of punishment against their American partners. As
a result, the firms of all countries are treated like U.S. companies, whose
warring home country demands patriotism in making profits, and this means “disinvestment,”
withdrawal of invested capital and an end to all commercial relations with
actual or potential enemy states. In case of defiance, there is the threat of
penalties up to a revocation of the license to do business in the United
States. Neutrality — even if a state insists on it for political reasons — is
thus made impossible in practice. Globally engaged banks, even without any
mandate from their capital city, “voluntarily” refrain from financing and
conducting business with foes of the United States. The Secretary of the
Treasury, at any rate, is enthusiastic about the effects of his new instrument
on the financial political war front.[2]

Foreign investments in the United States — taken under control as a
security risk

The U.S. government, which brings the entire world economy
into position as means of coercion against insubordinate sovereigns, sees to it
that other states cannot turn the same means against it. It searches its domestic
economic base for security gaps and prepares itself for exactly the same
influence from abroad that it exercises itself: questionable foreigners are
never allowed to gain control over parts of the economy by means of
internationalized firms.

It was the United States that pressed the free flow of
commodities and capital on other states, made their proving their worth as a
national center of investment for international capital their crucial task, and
thus created transnational capital. It has always understood the
internationalization of capital as progress and its export of capital to the
whole world as a benefit it withdraws when faced with insubordination. At the
same time, it has never concealed the fact that business done by U.S. firms in
foreign locations simultaneously promotes national accumulation in the country
of origin, nor that in addition it creates dependencies in the target country,
thus opening up ways to interfere in it. The United States is entitled to that;
and besides, the Yanks have always intervened in friendly nations for their own
good. But if it is not American capital purchasing the world’s sources of
wealth but foreign capital buying its way into the United States, then the
benefit for the target country is rather doubtful. The protector of global
capitalism comes back straight away to the point that as soon as issues of
power arise in the dealings between states, the curse or blessing of capital
for the nation is decided by its patriotic affiliation. It suspects foreign
investors from unreliable states, especially large firms and sovereign wealth
funds, of not operating in a profit-orientated way on U.S. territory but in the
strategic interest of their country of origin and of endangering American
security — just what it expects from its corporate groups in foreign countries.
As soon as the economy is looked at from this perspective, nearly everything
seems to be relevant to security.[3]
Couldn’t foreign investors sell militarily useful products or technologies to a
foreign country that has fallen out of favor, or acquire technological secrets,
thus jeopardizing the lead of U.S. weapons? And which technology really has no
military significance given today’s high-tech weapons? Not only military or
“dual-use” technology is then relevant for national security, but everything of
importance in economic life: foreign investors are considered capable of
buying into the oil, energy, or transport sectors (ports, airlines, railway
lines) in order to bring them to a standstill if need be and blackmail the
country via its economic lifelines. But the superpower cannot afford
vulnerability at any point whatsoever; after all, it wants to be able to harm
and punish other nations economically. It guards its freedom to act with
impunity not only as regards “rogue states” — they are already excluded from
all commerce — but also as regards capable and ambitious partners, above all
China, Russia, and its Arab allies.

The concern for national security takes on a different
character once again when the following viewpoints are brought into the
examination of foreign investments: “Does there exist the danger that
through the sale [of a firm] the United States incurs competitive disadvantages
that jeopardize national security? … In addition, attention is paid to as to
whether the country in question is cooperating with the United States in the fight
against terrorism.” (Financial Times Deutschland, see footnote 3). With
this, permission to invest capital in the American part of the world economy is
made dependent on whether the country of origin proves itself as a loyal
vassal of the United States in the matter of world order. Cross-border business
deals are by no means taken for granted but a privilege that other nations have
to earn by allegiance and services that strengthen the United States. Only
imperialistically cooperative nations should be allowed to use the American
economic area and pursue their success in international economic competition.
But even that not all-too much. For even the fact that the U.S. economy could —
in whatever way — incur competitive disadvantages through foreign ownership of
one of its companies is now seen as a peril for national security. The United
States no longer relates the global economic success of others to its own
capabilities and protests loudly of unfair competition when a foreign success
turns out too big and its own too small. It relates foreign competitive success
directly to the nation’s might that arises from it and that limits its own
might. Its concern that its economy might no longer succeed as it has until now
in utilizing the world market comes up as a question of security, which
therefore cannot be reconciled at all with, for instance, China’s economic
success at the same time creating opportunities for investment and sales for
U.S. capital so that both could profit — if it were only about growth and
money. When foreign competitive success is taken as a security problem, it is
treated as a source of power, and as such, growth on one side comes necessarily
at one’s own expense. In other words: the United States makes a secure,
competitive economic lead over other states a condition of its national
security. It no longer relies on the fact that it has this lead and renews it
time and again through all the ups and downs of the world economy, but insists
on its special position whatever the results of competition of capital and
capital locations. It still knows well enough from its historical ascent that
private capitalistic economic success translates into the wealth of a nation
and this in turn into means of national might. States that adapt themselves
all-too well to the global economic conditions of existence that America has
arranged for the world, that compete all-too successfully and whose economic
power grows quickly, become a target of the superpower as rivals for power.
They are informed that their economic success needs to have limits to avoid
being taken as an attack on the United States.

Ordering the world the American way — a terrible work of destruction

The missionary program to subordinate the world of states to
the order of the superpower is stirring up this world. A useful order, in which
rebuked and integrated states could then also pursue their ambitions and find
their national means of existence, is not, however, coming about.

The employment of military force easily sufficed to
annihilate the states attacked in the Middle East, their means of power, and
the social life as it existed. There was no lack in destructive force. All the
same, it was not useful for the creation of stable and pro-American states. In
Iraq and Afghanistan, religious and ethnic groups fight for power against each
other and the occupier. The establishment of a new state is after all something
other than the annihilation of the existing one along with the execution of its
leading figures. “Nation building” by a rough occupying power leads into
shifting situations of civil war and open conflict but does not create stable
relations on the ground that the remaining states would have to adapt to as a
fait accompli but which they could also make economic use of.

Because of that, the wars are not achieving their global
political mission. The superpower has sought to engage the world’s states,
above all the important ones, for its hostilities. The partners were expected
to form coalitions of the willing, provide auxiliary troops for U.S. wars, or
become “irrelevant.” This has failed. In the invasion of Iraq, the relief
services, unpopular at home, have yielded nothing other than sacrifices in men
and material for the willing coalition partners, and often they have cost the
incumbent friend of Bush his re-election. After changes of government (Spain,
Italy) or without them (Great Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland), one
coalition partner after the other is withdrawing from Iraq, leaving its chaos
to the Americans alone. On the other hand, though the disapproval of the Iraq
war demonstrated by France and Germany has not led to the foreign political
catastrophe threatened by Bush and Rumsfeld, neither has it exactly turned out
convincingly as a new way to global political greatness. The new heads of state
of the refusenik countries are attempting a rapprochement with the Bush
administration, of course from the position of a henceforth proven autonomy.

The clear self-assertion in the first big wars of the 21st
century, which was supposed to prove to the states of the world that there is
no alternative to submitting to the world order competence of the United
States, is a long time coming; and the entire yield of the period of war
consists up to now in an ongoing struggle of the superpower for the loyalty of
the great powers that are capable of rivalry. This struggle finds itself once
more at its point of departure; only American discontent has made progress —
after all, there are two wars lying between the initial desire to clarify the
hierarchy and state of command between the nations, and today’s non-result.
American strategists understand this as damaging to their deterrence
capability, even though they have proven their ability to obliterate
recalcitrant states really impressively. The way they see it, they have not yet
exercised enough force on the ground if they are still encountering insurgents
and foes of their occupation. The more doubtful the victory in Iraq and
Afghanistan gets, the more important it becomes. What is more, the entanglement
in unfavorable theatres of war cannot be allowed to raise doubts as to the
capability of the United States to wage a third or fourth war at any time. The
poor prospects of success of the old wars make the next one only more urgent.
The fact that this holds still more destruction in prospect is clear to those
responsible in Washington; they just do not care. They know of no alternative
to staying their course except for: more of the same! They postpone the
creation of a useful world order to the distant future; now the self-assertion
of the superpower against doubts that have arisen and against the
high-handedness of their objects of control and rivals is on the agenda.

Opposition politicians in the Capitol now and then warn of an
“imperial overstretch” and fear the endless battles might not only destroy the
countries in the Middle East but also the capability of the world power;
high-ranking officers accuse Bush of engaging more ground troops in the Middle
East than he can deploy on a sustained basis; overburdening them would weaken
the army for years. Such accusations are understood as they are meant; namely,
not as the demand that the nation should back down but as an exceedingly
constructive self-criticism of the superpower: the President chose the wrong
enemy for America’s self-assertion, waged the wrong war, invaded Iraq anyway
with too few troops and didn’t reinforce the troops until it was too late. The
alternative strategists ask whether America’s aims could not be achieved with
fewer resources, whether it would not be better if the commander-in-chief kept
troops out of the battle for Baghdad and conserved forces to be able to really
slog away where it matters.

All that alarms the other states: in its furious ordering
of the world, the greatest power on earth turns unpredictable, leaving behind
more and more chaos unusable for any use.

Commissioning the world economy for American wars harms the global course
of business and undermines its regulatory foundation

The U.S. government even disregards ruinous effects on
national and international capitalism. It cannot show any consideration in the
face of what is at stake.

First of all, direct effects of the war harm the global
economic situation. Iraq, the country with the second largest oil reserves on
earth, has been a theatre of war for years and is lost to a great extent as
supplier of that raw material. At the border of the half-way pacified Kurdish
North, virtually cut off from the rest of the country, and out of which oil
still flows, Turkey takes up position with 100,000 men and threatens with
invasion. The third biggest oil state, Iran, gets declarations of war conveyed
from Washington and threatens on its part to block the route of oil supply
through the Persian Gulf in the event of attack. Speculators cannot be in for
any surprises there if they bet on increasing oil prices, thereby pushing them
up. The record price for oil increases costs for manufacturers and on the other
hand absorbs the purchasing power of their customers. Now the Chinese are said
to be to blame for worldwide shrinking profits and sales because they, too, are
able to buy themselves oil.

Secondly, the superpower impedes the course of the world
economy when it treats the free flow of commodities and capital as a security
risk. Trade between American firms and foreigners, between third countries, investment
from capitalist states into U.S. enemies, and foreign investment in the United
States: all this will no longer be allowed by the nation at war unless it has
full control over it all and can stop anything that might even possibly be
useful to the enemy or weaken its own fighting strength. The Americans order
the exclusion of entire countries from an established world market with a fully
developed internationalization of capital, and demand that international actors
heed a belligerent U.S. patriotism in export, import, and investments. To the
extent that their regime of sanctions is followed, it obstructs profitable
business and reduces the opportunities for growth on the world market.
Investment bans and enforced disinvestment restrict the free utilization of optimal
opportunities in the field of globally mobile finance capital and obstruct the
flow of money from creditor to debtor and back. None of this fits with an
international financial system that is precisely based on the free flow of
capital.

The demand that everything economic has to go through the
United States and under its control, or not at all, does not, however, lead
only to the demanded compliance. Banks in many countries find ways to
circumvent the prescribed damage to business by concluding transactions through
Russia, India, or the Arab Emirates. Under these auspices, some companies
reduce the degree of their foothold in the United States in order to be less
exposed to blackmail. Daimler, as a symbol for the national return of global
companies, no longer intends to append "World Inc" to its name after
the termination of its association with Chrysler. Other big companies listed on
the DAX do without having their shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange
and pull back from the globally most important center for capital turnover,
where they absolutely had to be present only a few years ago. So patriotism in
the location decision is growing, also reactively, as they flee from being
taken into business-damaging service by the American host country.

This flight is one, but only one, reason for several big
trading nations in the meantime to start detaching their commerce from the
money of the world-controlling power: Iran, Russia, partially even Saudi
Arabia would like to invoice their oil in euros in the future, and many
countries are in the process of shifting their currency reserves out of the
American currency and into, above all, the European one. Moreover, the
superpower forbids China to use the world money it has earned in exporting to
America to its own avail. America thus restricts the global usability of its
own global means of business, as it is dollars that China has earned, and
dollars in which it holds its investment funds and currency reserves. The
American creator of the dollar, which profits so much from the dollar’s
international use and establishment, prohibits the free use of its currency by
one that acquired it, and by restricting the usefulness of its money restricts
its character as world money: its quality of granting access to everything for
sale. It becomes a risk for states to be paid in dollars or to possess dollars
if perchance they are not allowed to use them in the country of issue. Both
reservations join the more fundamental one that it is no longer at all clear
what a holder of dollars can do with them quite apart from what it is permitted
to do with them. It becomes doubtful how much the money of the superpower it
holds in its hands still constitutes worldwide power of access to all goods and
services, or whether it does at all. The reckless proliferation of the dollar
for financing the costs of war slowly seems to be having an impact. The U.S.
government takes on several hundred billions in new war debt each year, at the
same time being just as long indifferent to the fact that a balance of payments
constantly in deficit makes the country’s foreign indebtedness grow. It treats
it as a self-evident privilege of the United States to disregard all the
principles that in bourgeois states are otherwise regarded as guaranteeing a
sound management of the national budget and debt, and even more or less heeded.
The dollar hadn’t required such a self-restriction on the part of its
guardians; they were able to bring it into service for financing their wars
without further calculation, and base the confidence it needed and enjoyed on
the sheer power over the world of states secured by their wars. The U.S.
currency had no need to fear comparison with other national monies, playing in
a different league as long as firstly the United States was the center of world
capitalism towering over all others by far, thus more or less the only
alternative for investors, and secondly as long as its capability to assert
itself militarily was beyond any doubt. Both conditions appear no longer to
hold so clearly. Now, in these times of war and imminent crisis, the wealthy of
all countries no longer seek the dollar as ultimate guarantor of value and safe
harbor; instead, the global finance mafia is speculating with and on the
weakness of the dollar. And renowned pundits see more in the present fall in
value of the dollar than the usual cyclical ups and downs of exchange rates,
fearing they are witnessing a sudden change from quantity to quality: the depreciation,
if it takes place rapidly enough and extends far enough, threatens to lead to
the loss of the dollar’s quality as leading currency of the world economy. In
fact, observers from competing nations hope neither for the fall of the leading
currency to a qualitatively equal status with their currencies, nor for the
accompanying end of the unlimited capacity to incur debt and create money, by
which generations of U.S. governments have financed all the instruments of
force and wars required for their supremacy. Competitors fear the end of this
special position, since in view of the sums of dollars they hold as currency
reserves, a fall in the dollar would amount to a rapid devaluation of their
reserves. Besides, this would be the end of the global economic boom, in which
many, if not all, big capitalist states are achieving growth by exporting to
the United States, for which they accept dollars in payment. If they no longer
trust this money or accept it only in a sharply devalued form as payment for
their exports, then America will no longer be able to purchase anything, and
they will no longer be able to earn anything.

The investment bans of the United States and their
obstruction of the global course of business ultimately undermine the political
basis of doing business in world capitalism. When American authorities directly
approach German companies and “persuade” them to give up their business with
Iran, this is an attack on German sovereignty, and not just in the opinion of
outraged nationalists. After all, not only do they harm German business by this
and eliminate sources of German growth, they additionally contest the German government’s
political power, which develops from economic relations. The government in
Berlin after all wants to make use of its access to the nation’s capital
itself, to exert pressure on other states and reward good conduct by permitting
or prohibiting export and investment. When Washington reserves this privilege
for itself, it is raising an objection to the transformation of established
economic dependence into political influence. The world power informs its
partners and rivals that they may do business and enrich themselves as nations
— to the extent authorized — but by so doing they may not gain power over other
members of the world of states if this is not acceptable to the U.S.
government. When this government then prohibits the Chinese and Russians from
investing in important branches of its economy because this could harm
America’s competitive lead and thereby national security, it is informing these
economic partners that their economic success goes too far for it.

In both cases, the United States is canceling one of the
basic principles of the global economic competition of nations that it once
established. The ban on trade discrimination and exclusive zones as well as the
imperative to face up to the economic competition of other states was
consistent with the permission to increase one’s own weight and rank within the
concert of nations in this “nonpolitical” way. Now the United States applies
limits to competition between states because it converts the success of certain
players into an increase in might and takes this as an assault on its position.

Because America embarks on exclusion and bans from
competition — and wherever it does so — it provokes new economic alliances
against it, exclusive national access, and the disintegration of the world
economy into zones of influence. Ever since it started fighting in the Middle
East and Central Asia for exclusive control over the world’s energy reserves, no
major state intends to rely any longer on oil being purchased on the world
market. Each of them seeks special relations with oil states, insisting on
long-term bilateral delivery contracts and guarantees that they will be adhered
to. And a superior power ultimately trusts such guarantees only if it is able
to directly incorporate the supplier into its own sphere of influence and take
it under control. In reaction, other states able to afford it now also subsume
their economic relations under the standpoint of national security.
Particularly important business connections are examined with a view to which
partner state thereby strengthens itself as a power at the expense of others
and which one falls into dependence. All big states demand influence on their
partners to the degree the power of their capital allows, and refuse to
tolerate exactly the same on their part. Meanwhile Russia no longer permits
foreign takeovers in the development of new oil and gas fields, allowing only
minority participation; Gazprom is not allowed to buy its way into German or
European natural gas networks and other energy infrastructure. Germany and the
European Union are working on general laws by which, notwithstanding the
freedom of capital flows, investments of all-too powerful foreigners —
sovereign wealth funds from Russia and China are the target — can be brought to
a halt or be secured against any sort of influence linked to the money.

Instead of putting an end to it, the United States opens up a new age of
imperialist competition

The Americans are not having simple success with any of
their military, political alliance-based, and economic acts of war. They arouse
resistance, a militant one in the Islamic world, whose entire reason of state
and way of life they contest; a calculating reluctance in old allies, in the
former evil enemy, as well as in the global political upward climbers from
Asia. The powers capable of rivaling the U.S. have understood the challenge:
the United States is attempting to decide the balance of power between the
states once and for all, to secure for itself the monopoly on the use of
military force and the prerogative in conquering capitalistic sources of
wealth. The so-called partners know that with the success of this program,
their successes up to now will be built on sand and can be undone at any time;
not to speak of their further reaching ambitions. A nation that seeks its
competitive success in the global economy — and this is certain for them now —
has to attend to the security of its conditions for using foreign countries
with its own instruments of power; and for this even has to take on the United
States.

Partners and rivals of the superpower have long since been
copying its practices: they, too, do not shy away from widespread
intervention, wherever their interests are at stake — and this is everywhere.
And everywhere they go they come across soldiers and diplomats from the United
States, who have been intervening there for a long time and exerting influence.
The active nations test to what extent they are able to achieve effects in
other countries with their economic and political levers, thereby getting
something for their efforts; and often enough they notice that their means of
influence are simply meager in competition with those of the United States. The
“Central” European powers, along with Russia, China, and others are searching
for ways to restrict the power of the United States by cooperating with each
other, in order to extend their own might. For this, they hope to use the
superpower’s embarrassments on its battlefields and the vulnerability of its
economic base as opportunities. At the same time, there is no common cause
uniting the anti-American resisters other than their common suffering under
American supremacy. Each of them is therefore at the same time worried it might
leave a partner too great a part in dividing up the world; and calculates with
partners against U.S. supremacy as well as the other way round against the
partners in cooperation with the United States.

They themselves express that nothing less than a division of
the world between the imperialist powers is at stake when they identify their
foreign, alliance-based, and military political activities as efforts to order
the world. The United States does this when presenting itself as the
“indispensable nation” for giving order to the world, as do its rivals that unanimously
reject the model of a “unipolar world order” and politely argue for a
“multipolar” one, as if it were about a competition of models. It is clear to
all of them that, under this rubric, no one is competing over this or that
interest of one or another state, but over the acquisition or obstruction of
world power status, which also decides which state has a say about which other
state, or has to let others have a say about it. There is a fight going on for
domination and submission in the world of states.

In this respect, the proponents of a multipolar world order
are serious about it: they consider it indispensable to prevent a U.S.
monopoly on force over the globe and to preserve their freedom to use force.
But since — in view of the distribution of the means of force — it is
inconceivable for them to set themselves up right away as a monopolist on
global force in place of the United States, and since they need their peers to
slow down the superpower, they innocently declare their support for the
contradiction of a multipolar control over the world of states, as if this
would be a form of transnational democracy.

Hardly in action, the same friends of multipolarity show no
fondness at all for power and gain in power that another pole of cooperation
might extract. Great Britain, France, and Germany designate Russia and China as
strategic partners; i.e., as interesting partners in matters of power and
force, calling on them to reliably commit themselves to the strategic
partnership. At the same time, they themselves attach great importance to not
binding and obligating themselves in any way. Mrs. Merkel, the German
chancellor, demonstrates this when she travels to Beijing, swears to partnership
and extends the fields of cooperation in a good climate, and then, hardly back
in Berlin, welcomes the Dalai Lama; or when, shortly after a visit to Moscow,
she pillories what’s going on inside Russia as sham democracy. Diplomacy
towards the strategic partner becomes a test of what the other gives in the way
of backing against America’s unreasonable demands, and to what extent it can be
assigned and subordinated to one’s own global political calculus; hence also a
test of how urgently it sees itself dependent on the demanding partner. For
this, snubbing its legal viewpoint is just perfect: Merkel and Sarkozy, the
French president, play watchdog for good governance vis-à-vis powers of equal
rank, placing their esteemed partners close to the ranks of illegitimate
despots. The Russians and Chinese demonstrate on their part that they have
alternatives to backing the Europeans, and don’t accept being reprimanded.
Putin copies the dialectics of this diplomacy, one day in Brussels assuring
support for new sanctions against Iran, the next day in Teheran affirming that
nobody may deny Iran the inalienable right to peacefully develop nuclear
technology. The Chinese leadership lets scheduled appointments fall through and
abandons forms of diplomatic preferential treatment vis-à-vis Germany. The
partners, who demand absolute reliability from each other, thereby become very
unreliable for each other. Each demands predictability from the other; none of
them offers it, and none of them gets it. No party is prepared for an actual
alliance and a corresponding strictly negative, hostile attitude and resolute
enmity — be it against the United States or together with it against another
excluded party.

Along with the search for the correct strategic alignment,
there is the internal self-critique of the great powers, which see themselves
challenged by America’s world ordering. After all, the United States sets the
standard for imperialist competitiveness, a standard any state aiming to
disobey or resist it has to measure up to. And in this regard, the challenged
competitors can only notice the crucial things they lack: the type and
quantity of weapons, the size and global presence of weapon carriers, and
money. This does not necessarily spur them to caution, but rather to vigorous
efforts to clear up their imperialistic deficiencies. These differ for each
power. The Europeans are plagued by the fact that they have yet to pool their
national means of power, have no common European foreign and defense policy,
because they haven’t managed to establish power relations with clear command
among themselves. Each of the big member states demands a European foreign
policy, a European defense, a European weapons development — namely, their own
— and presses ahead with uniting the continent against the others with the
means that the Union has to offer, hence not exactly with sweeping success. The
Russian leadership still sees itself compelled to secure its internal national
cohesion, that is, the Kremlin’s control over the country, as well as to keep
an eye on its neighboring post-soviet precincts. In addition, it has jettisoned
its promised self-restriction in conventional armament, a self-restriction not
acknowledged by NATO states, and is developing techniques to neutralize the
American missile defense. China is learning that it urgently has to modernize
the People’s Liberation Army and enlist partners in the world for its raw
material supply; that this enterprise can, however, only succeed if it is able
to also guarantee their existence.

Otherwise, all of them need their own satellite navigation
system and urgently have to get to the moon. On the occasion of America’s
dawning, Hitler’s motto is celebrating a huge comeback: to be a world power —
or none at all.

Notes

“Today, I want to talk about something a little different — the financial
system’s importance to our national security. … Global financial flows are
growing rapidly and greatly exceed the trade in goods and services. This is a
positive trend, open finances and free trade enhance the economic security and
prosperity of people in this country and around the world. But bad actors seek
to abuse this global financial system to support their illicit purposes. The
world of finance and the world of terror and weapons proliferation intersect
through the same system that spreads prosperity at home and abroad. …

“Treasury is now a key pillar of the president’s national
security and foreign policy strategy.… Our financial system also presents us
with enormous opportunities because technology and integration have made it
more difficult for anyone using the financial system to hide. This makes
financial intelligence a particularly valuable tool to detect and disrupt bad
actors.…our financial actions have produced demonstrable impacts on threats
ranging from terrorist groups to narcotics cartels, and on dangerous regimes in
North Korea and Iran. This new strategy uses conduct-based,
intelligence-grounded, targeted financial measures to harness the power of the
private sector and form the basis of multilateral coalitions, adding an
innovative financial dimension to our national security effort. Treasury can
effectively use these tools largely because the U.S. is the key hub of the
global financial system …

“The consequences of these targeted measures can be seen
on a number of levels, some obvious and some less so. Most directly, when the
U.S. designates a terrorist supporter or a weapons proliferator, U.S. entities
and persons, wherever located, must freeze the target’s assets and stop doing
business with them. Given the U.S. financial system’s prominence, this can have
a severe impact.” (Remarks by Treasury Secretary Paulson on Targeted
Financial Measures to Protect Our National Security, June 14, 2007).

2
In the course of his speech, Mr. Paulson really falls into raptures over how
successfully he is able to blackmail private banks, with reference to the
dangers threatening their business, into “prudence and integrity,” into
“voluntarily” complying with his conditions, and how when they buckle under he
in turn brings insubordinate states on course:

“The private sector, when presented with our solid
evidence, is able to act much more quickly than governments who often lack the
necessary authority or the political will to take actions on their own… Most of
the world’s top financial institutions have now dramatically reduced their
Iranian business or stopped it altogether. For the most part, they are not
legally required to take these steps but have decided, as a matter or prudence
and integrity that they do not want to be the bankers for such a regime. To
those banks that have decided to stop dollar-based business, but continue to
transact Iran’s business in other currencies, I would say that the risk of
transacting Iran’s business is present in every currency …

“Once some in the private sector decide to cut off those
we have targeted, it becomes an even greater reputational risk for others not
to follow, and so they often do. Such voluntary implementation by the private
sector in turn makes it even more palatable for governments to impose similar
measures, thus creating a mutually-reinforcing cycle of public and private
action …” (ibid.)

3
Here is a list of old and new investigation criteria that the Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) applies, as reported in the Financial Times Deutschland: “Are
the products of a company required for fulfilling national security provisions?
Does a possible sale to foreigners restrict the capacity for defense? Are national
security interests harmed through the control of the company by foreign
investors? Is there a danger of military goods and technologies being
transferred into states that support terrorism or produce chemical or
biological weapons? Is there a danger through a sale of the United States sustaining
competitive disadvantages that jeopardize national security? … In the future, CFIUS
has to take six further criteria into account. It has, for instance, to examine
whether there are security-relevant impacts on U.S. infrastructure, inclusive of
important energy resources. Moreover, they have to find out whether access to
important raw materials and other materials is impaired. In addition, they must
pay attention to whether the country in question cooperates with the United
States in the fight against terrorism.” (“How
the United States takes action against foreign investors,” translated from
FTD.de, October 23, 2007)